Search continues for bodies at Iranian plane crash site on mountaintop

Iranian search workers are seen at Mount Dena in the Zagros Mountain Range on February 21, 2018, in an operation to recover the bodies of victims of a plane crash. (Photo by Fars news agency)

Seven search teams have been dispatched to the site of a passenger plane crash on a mountaintop in southwestern Iran to recover the remaining bodies buried under heavy snow.

Aziz Fili, a deputy at Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Governorate General Office and vice-chairman of the province’s crisis committee, told IRNA news agency on Saturday that the 14th day of the search operation had begun on Saturday.

Six three-member groups have been deployed to the crash site on board two helicopters and are conducting the operation to recover the bodies of the victims, Fili said.

Another group, comprising three specialists, has also been sent to the region to search for the black box of the plane, he added.

Two of the search groups dispatched would stay overnight at the plane crash site, around 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) up Mount Dena, he pointed out.

The Aseman Airlines ATR-72 plane with 66 people on board was flying over the Zagros mountain range to the southwestern city of Yasuj on February 18 when it disappeared from the radar in inclement weather around the town of Semirom in Isfahan Province. Its wreckage was found on February 20 after weather conditions improved.

However, heavy snow and blizzards have intermittently hampered operations to recover the bodies and take them from the mountain peak to the ground.

The plane crash site is currently covered with approximately three meters of snow.